I was happy to have finished the first draft to my latest piece As Midnight on a Moonless Night before I flew to California for a short visit and performance of Dreamland at California State University, Fullerton. While Dr. Marc Dickey (who recently penned a wonderfully interpretive and equally analytical article on Shine for this year’s MBM Times Magazine) has been on sabbatical, I was introduced to fantastic young conductor, Dustin Barr, who took the reigns as interim director in addition to his fulltime gig as director of bands at Mt. San Antonio College. As you can see and hear by the short YouTube clip above, he made amazing music with the Fullerton Symphonic Band. I can’t wait for us to collaborate like that again! Seriously. Amazing conductor. Amazing guy.

Then it was off to Chicago for what was my fifth Midwest Clinic.

In the photo above, John Darling, Kevin Jedele, Christopher Tucker, and Jeff Gershman all pose for a patented “Markowski” photo. 2 years later and it’s still fun to make fun of. I guess.

It’s always good to catch up with friends and colleagues that I haven’t seen all year, and even though I’m no longer published with Manhattan Beach Music, it’s still good to catchup with the Manhattan Beach family of composers, like Joni Greene and Frank Ticheli. 

This was a particularly fantastic Midwest experience because I had the honor of having two — TWO! — remarkable performances of my music. The first was Turkey in the Straw performed by the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts Wind Symphony under the direction of Mr. Shawn Barat. As you can hear by the short video that I was able to sneak during their dress rehearsal, they gave an incredibly tight and eccentric performance — and T.i.t.S. has got to be that flavored, otherwise all the details and fragments just sound like, well, as YouTube aficionado Randomnessocity858 stated in a comment directed towards the Hong Kong Tak Ming Philharmonic Winds’ performance:

“sounds REALLY broken up, it was like listening to 10 seconds of random playing, then 3 seconds of melody, and then more random playing. Maybe a simpler arrangement would make it sound more solid? I know what Turkey in the Straw should sound like and this was disappointing since I was expecting an orchestra to make it sound epic, but instead there was just too much amelodic filler crammed in.”

Haters gonna hate.

You would think the awesomeness would end there, but no way. The next night, the Springdale Har-Ber Wind Symphony, under the direction of Mr. Jeremy Ford, gave an incredibly moving performance of Shine to a packed Midwest Clinic ballroom. Seriously, there had to have been a good 1,500 people in there, but then again, my eyes are often bigger than my stomach. Again, as you’ll hear from the short clip I snuck on my iPhone during their dress rehearsal, this band made some mad beautiful music.

It was a perfect Midwest Clinic this year. AND it even snowed on the last day. Definitely a win.